


In the Mist

by Aftenstjerne



Series: The Mist [1]
Category: The Addams Family (Movies - Sonnenfeld)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Dubious Consent, F/M, Married Couple, Married Life, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:55:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27867965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aftenstjerne/pseuds/Aftenstjerne
Summary: This story takes place short time after Morticia and Gomez's first honeymoon. Gomez mourns his long lost brother and falls into a serious depression. Morticia finds herself alone and scared by the sudden change in her husband. She wants nothing else than to help him, but he seems to be beyond help. The couple face their first crisis and things get dark. Really dark.
Relationships: Gomez Addams/Morticia Addams
Series: The Mist [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2195481
Comments: 31
Kudos: 21





	1. In the Mist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MidnightLoveStories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightLoveStories/gifts).



> This fic contains themes that are not suitable for everyone. Please read the tags carefully and if you are triggered by anything please do not make yourself upset by reading this. It is dark stuff. We are talking all hurt and no comfort. I got my inspiration mainly from having to go through 2020. 
> 
> I gift this to MidnightLoveStories because she brightens up the darkness of my lame covid-life. She is a good friend. And she said she wanted angst. So, MidnightLoveStories, here is your angst. I hope you'll enjoy.
> 
> Thanks again to my lovely beta, helloitshaley. Your help is very much appreciated. 
> 
> After finishing the first chapters, I added an extra one by request, so you may want to read the whole thing one more time. 
> 
> \--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Maybe,” she says, pausing to choose her words carefully, “maybe you should try and find someone to talk to. Someone other than me.” 

“But you’re the only one I trust, Morticia,” he groans, his face buried between the velvet pillows on their bed.

“I know that. Still I don’t think that I can help you, Gomez. And you need help.”'

Silence falls between them, heavy like the draperies that obscures the window by their bed, emphasizing the truth in her last statement. 

“I don’t want their lobotomy.”

She feels a sudden urge to laugh despite the hopelessness of the whole situation.

“I don’t think the first thing the doctors will offer you is lobotomy, darling.”

“They want… to take…. the pain …away.”

The words leave his lips in a staggering manner, an English where all the bones are broken. Suddenly she pities him for having to convey his innermost pain in his second language.

“Maybe you should let them.”

“Querida, you don’t understand.” He moves himself into a sitting position, looking at her with red-rimmed eyes.

“The pain I feel is all I have left. It’s the last thing that connects me with Fester. If they erase my memory of him, of what I have done to him– “

Gomez pauses and shakes his head as if he cannot believe the insanity of suggesting he gets help. It strikes Morticia with horror that he is determined to go on with his suffering, no matter the cost. It hurts her more than she is willing to admit that he is so committed to his torment, so devoted to a memory of his long lost brother. She may have no right to think so, yet she feels like he betrays her by surrendering to his grief and resentfulness.

He loves her, but he loves another just as much, although in a very different way. There’s no reciprocity in this love, and no joy. Yet it looms over everything they have together, everything she wants for them in the future.

“You need to rest, mon cher,” Morticia whispers, fighting the urge to touch him because he may not let her and she cannot deal with his rejection. The mere prospect of it is too painful.

“There’s no rest for one like me. No forgiveness. No mercy.”

And there it starts again, she thinks to herself, the endless trial where he is both the convict and the judge. Gomez will not let her take the role of defender, although she wishes nothing else than to be that for him. Instead, she is reduced to play the audience, the silent crowd, the powerless witness to his struggle. She hates it. She is a woman of action and he leaves her with nothing to do.

“I drove my own brother away.”

There is disbelief in his voice and wonder, as if he admits it for the first time.

Morticia does not answer; she knows he does not expect her to. She already knows what comes next.

“I did not love them. Still I wooed them both out of foolish pride.”

The unwanted image of her husband in the arms of those Siamese sluts makes her shudder and she bites her lip. Flora and Fauna Addams, they are family, and she knows she has to deal with them for years to come. She has yet to learn how. And that is just one of the many skills, she realizes, which she has to develop as a wife, for she knows now that her life with Gomez will not be all lovely thorns and singing vultures. The last two weeks have gradually changed the joyous and easy-going man she thought she had married into a brooding and sinister shadow of his former self.

“ _I killed him_ ,” he says, his eyes fixated at some unspecific spot above her head, and the sheer vulnerability in his voice makes her scream inwardly.

***

Morticia is studying for her upcoming exam when Gomez enters the library, puffing aggressively on his cigar. He walks over to the window without looking at her. She casts a wary glance at the V-shape of his turned back before returning her attention to the open spell book in front of her. But the Latin words make no sense any longer and she sighs to herself before closing the book.

“What’s the matter, mon cher?” Morticia asks softly, not sure if she really wants to hear the answer.

“I think you should leave me,” Gomez replies, and his words fill her with a sudden anger. She is doing the final year of her degree and he knows how important this exam is to her. Does he no longer care about anything else than his brother Fester? How can he walk in like that, all passive aggressive and disturbing, and when she tries to show that she cares, all she gets in return is sheer nonsense? 

“What do you mean?” she says, her voice no longer so gentle.

“There’s no life for a woman like you, being with someone like me.”

His voice is hard and laced with an unfamiliar bitterness.

Morticia raises from her chair and walks over to her husband.

“You are the only one I want to be with, Gomez Addams.” She cannot prevent her irritation from colouring her voice.

“But I’m trying to prepare for an important exam and you make me lose my focus.”

Finally, he crushes out his cigar and turns towards her, his eyes large and soft with sorrow. Her heart weeps in her chest when they meet hers.

“I don’t deserve you, Tish.”

“Please don’t say things like that,” she whispers, her throat suddenly narrow and uncomfortable.

“It’s not true.”

Morticia reaches for him, but Gomez stops her, grabbing her wrists and placing her hands against his chest. She can feel the rapid beating of his heart underneath her palms as well as her own pulse against the restraint of his strong fingers.

“I will never forget you, cara mia. You are the only good thing that has ever happened to me.”

“Gomez, I’m not going anywhere.”

She searches for his eyes, but his gaze remains fixated on their joined hands.

“You will. One day, when you’ve had enough of me.” He draws a ragged breath, before meeting her eyes. ” I must lose everyone I love. I have come to believe that it’s my destiny.”

Before Morticia can answer him, Gomez lets go of her and rushes out of the library. Minutes later, she hears the first explosion from the train room.

_I need air_ , she thinks, and heads for the swamp.

Morticia is sitting on a rotten timber log peeling of the black bark, not caring that she is ruining her perfect nail polish. She has decided to apply for a postponement of her final exams. There is no other solution; she cannot focus on her studies right now. She loathes the fact that she has to call her mother and tell her about her plans. However, the witch society is small and it is better that she hears it from Morticia than from somebody else.

“I worked as a fortune teller in a freaking fun house so I could afford you education. I hated every minute of it but I did it for you, Morticia. And why? Because you are my daughter and I wanted you to have all the opportunities I never had.”

Morticia closes her eyes and pinches the skin between her eyebrows. She regrets that she opted for a phone call. She should have gone for a letter instead.

“The private tutors, the trip to Blocksberg, I paid for everything and what do I get in return? You are dropping out right before your last semester because your husband _isn’t feeling well_? 

“Mama, I’m not dropping out, I’m just taking a break.”

Morticia hates the fact that she is defending her choices in front of her mother. She is a grown woman, it should not be necessary anymore. Still, she cannot run from the fact that it was her mother who paid for her education. And that gives her the upper hand.

“It’s not like you to do something so rash. If it was Ophelia I wouldn’t be surprised, but you? How can you do this to me, Morticia? Throwing away everything you have worked so hard for in favour of some spoiled rich boy that you met at a funeral?”

“He’s not spoiled,” Morticia snaps, “he has been through a lot.”

“I tell you what, pumpkin, they aren’t too pleasant to be around, those aristocrats. It’s all the inbreeding. Makes them nuttier than a five-pound fruitcake **.** And any husband, rich or not, can be a lot of trouble. I should know it; I have had three of them. Still, I don’t think you should let your husband’s… _eccentricities_ get in the way of your career.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion about my husband or my choices. I simply called to inform you that I’m taking a break and why. Now that I’m done doing that I say this conversation is over. Bye Mama. “

Morticia curses in French as she puts back the receiver, silently wishing for her mother to choke on her next joint. She should have known better than trying to get any sympathy from her. 

***

He sits in the library all day long, smoking one cigar after another. The air is dense with smoke when she glides through the door, her shoulders bare and soft, the tendrils of her evening gown trailing over the dusty floorboards. His eyes do not move as she enters the room, all onyx and alabaster, his beloved wife, although she feels more like an intruder upon his solitude than anything else.

Gomez has barely touched her the last month and now he is no longer speaking to her either. There is something almost sacral to his mourning. It creates a distance, a void between their mind and bodies, and crossing that void would be to overstep a boundary, and she dares not do so. Her needs are earthly and mundane, perhaps even selfish, and she cannot throw them at the feet of such a holy despair. She understands that he takes on an ascetic lifestyle to show his penance and that the only comfort he allows himself is whatever comfort there is left for him in chain smoking. He does not mean to hurt her, yet he does.

“Your dinner is getting cold,” she says and her voice is thinner than she wants it to be. Shy, almost girl like. Morticia searches for his eyes, through the smoke and the ominous stillness.

Never did she believe that her Gomez could get so quiet. It frightens her.

He does not answer and when she finally meets his gaze, he sees right through her. She inhales sharply and fights the urge to cough as she moves towards the window. The smoke drifts out to mingle with the mist.

She stares into the shapeless grey and listens, longing to hear the soft, soothing drizzle of rain. Maybe, she thinks, a change in the weather could lead to a change in her husband too.

***

Gomez Addams was a prominent figure in the upper circles of New York and his absence cannot go unnoticed forever. Flamboyant, joyous and charismatic as well as grotesquely rich, everybody wanted a piece of him. So when the weeks went by with no sight of him in the public sphere, people started to notice. He was missed at the board meetings as well as at the charity balls. His business partners sent him letters, which he did not even bother to open. The phone rang constantly at the Addams residence. The shadier acquaintances called late at night, but hung up immediately when they were greeted by a female voice. 

One Tuesday evening, a couple showed up at their door, a man and woman dressed in black. First, Morticia was delighted as she assumed they were leaders of a doomsday cult, but that was just wishful thinking. They turned out to be journalists from The Times. When she asked them what they were after, they said they wanted to know about the Balthazar-case. Could she confirm that it was true that the FBI had decided to reopen the cold case of the Balthazar murder, and if so, was Gomez still a suspect? If not, did she happen to know any other reason why nobody had seen him for weeks?

Morticia had slammed the door and locked it right in front of their hungry rat faces. They took their revenge of course, and the article about her husband, which took up the whole middle section of the following Saturday paper, was a filthy mess of lies and rumours. She threw it in the garbage the moment after the mailman had left. Luckily, she did not have to make up an excuse to Gomez, he did not ask for his morning paper anymore.

Something had to be done. If only she knew what.

***

“Cemetery Grove Asylum, you are speaking to Professor Winkelstein, how can I help you?”

The doctor’s voice is cool and antiseptic with a slight hint of a German accent.

“It’s my husband. I found your number in his address book.”

“Is he a former patient at the Asylum?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“Can you give me his full name, please?”

“It’s Gomez Addams.”

“How do you spell Addams?”

“With two d’s.”

“Just give me a moment and I will find his journal. Hold the line, bitte.”

Morticia twists the cord around the index finger of her left hand, still not sure if she is doing the right thing.

“Returning melancholia over the last ten years, the patient believes he indirectly caused his brother’s death by chasing him away. Reduced interest in daily activities, loud and dramatic behaviour followed by days spent in a close to catatonic state. Tried talk therapy, without effect. Refuses to let go of his narrative as the guilty brother. The patient agreed to try electroconvulsive therapy and insisted upon being conscious under the treatments. Reports to have experienced a brief feeling of euphoria, yet unable to achieve the desired long term effect. However, the melancholia seems to pass by itself after a few weeks, the final phase is sometimes indicated by the uttering of suicidal thoughts…”

The muscles in her stomach tightens as a cold fear ripples through her body. 

“Suicidal thoughts?”

“Has he expressed any such thoughts to you, Mrs Addams?”

“No. He’s been rather…quiet lately.”

Her heart races in her chest and suddenly she feels nauseous. Morticia cannot stand the thought of losing Gomez. They are supposed to die old, and together, as he promised her in his vows. If he wanted to die before, something must certainly have changed after he met her?

Their love cannot mean so little. Not now when it has become her everything.

“Mrs Addams, are you still there?” 

“What do I do if he expresses any…suicidal thoughts?”

“Do not worry too much, Mrs Addams. Such expressions are most likely just a call for attention. Try to see if you can convince him to go for a walk with you. Some fresh air would do him good. Along with regular meals. And hide away any sharp objects you may have in the house. Just to be on the safe side.”

“Sharp objects?”

“Like kitchen knives. You have a few sharp knives in the kitchen, I guess?”

“Professor Winkelstein,” his name comes out like a plea as she feels her hope slipping away from her.

“Isn’t there a treatment for this? Something you have not tried yet?”

“Well, there is always lobotomy. As far as I can see from his journal, none of the doctors has suggested it yet. If you want to we can arrange an appointment, and you can bring him here so that we can discuss…”

“No.” Her reply cuts the professor’s speech in half and the silence on the other end makes her nervous. Raised to respect knowledge, she has never spoken back to an expert like that before.

“I mean….I’ll hide the kitchen knives. And we will…wait and see.”

“Jahwoll. Ich verstehe. You do that Mrs Addams. But do not hesitate to call again if you want a further introduction to the advantages of lobotomy. It’s a fascinating field.”

He laughs a little, as to apologize for his enthusiasm. She does not reply.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have patients that are waiting for me. Have a good day Mrs Addams.”

She drops the receiver and it hits the leg of the phone table with a solid thud causing a visible dent in the antique polish.

***

Morticia slides her hand over the various weapons on display in the hallway. She touches the edge of an ancient, Siberian hunter knife, pressing the tip of her finger against it. A drop of blood trickles down the smooth surface of the blade and she sticks her finger in her mouth, tasting copper.

_Sharp. Definitely sharp._

So where does she even begin? The whole mansion is stuffed with weapons way more deadly than kitchen utensils. And there is not only Gomez’s collection of swords and knives, the whole house is a death trap. Electric chairs, guillotines and enough dynamite to blow them into the next century, her husband is a passionate collector of everything deadly. There is no way she can lock all of it away.

Morticia choses to start with the library, since Gomez spends most of his time in there. She feels a strange need for discretion, as if she is afraid to offend him with her worries. She waits until she is sure he is asleep before she gets to work. It takes her more than an hour to clean the room for every shiny blade of steel. Although it may only feed the illusion that she is able to protect him from himself, her work fills her with the undeniable satisfaction of at least being able to do something.

Energized by her late night labour, Morticia decides to go to the Asylum during visiting hour and talk to the Amor twins. She suspects they might know more than they have chosen to say when it comes to Fester’s whereabouts. After all, they used to date him. It cannot hurt to have a talk with them. A returning Fester, alive, half-alive or in a coffin would give Gomez the closure he needs. And Heaven knows she needs it too.


	2. The Amor Twins

The soft rustling of Morticia’s dress against the leaves on the sidewalk is the only sound breaking the deadly silence of the mist on her walk up to The Cemetery Grove Asylum. The numerous Victorian mansions with their withering facades and overgrown gardens all seem to be abandoned for the winter. There’s a certain decadence connected to this neighbourhood, which she likes to think of as European. The remains of a long gone era cling to their existence here, digging their dirty nails into the glass and steel of the real New York.

Morticia enjoys the chill air and the change of scenery. Over the weeks, her home has started to feel like a prison to her. A prison where she is serving time with a stranger, her only crime being that of marrying a man she did not know at all. And still, she does not know him enough to tell for sure if she is dealing with a passing phase or the very end of their life together.

_Who is this man_ , Morticia had asked herself, _who laughs so fearlessly in the face of Death_? Their eyes had met across the open grave and she saw it all in an instant: their wedding, their shared journey through the world, their lifeless bodies rotting together for all eternity. She had no doubt in her mind when Gomez proposed the same night: they were meant to be. For once, she had made a decision based entirely on her feelings. Her heart and her body made a quiet agreement the moment he bowed to kiss her outstretched hand; she did not bother involving her intellect.

Was she wrong to rush into marriage, not fully aware of what she had signed up for? Gomez seemed so emotionally open and honest, so unlike her in many ways. He had told her that she was the missing piece in his heart, the one and only human being who could make him truly happy. With her, his life was complete. She was swept off her feet by the intensity of Gomez’s love for her. Where others saw a skinny and rather quiet student of the obscure art of witchcraft, he saw a whole lot more. To him she was shrouded in mystery, a radiant and mythical being, almost some kind of goddess. He worshipped her, and she relished in his praise as any woman would. With him, unlike with so many others, she had the feeling of finally being enough. Here was a man who would never ask her to be anything else or anything more than what she already was. All he wanted from her was her company, her love and devotion. With him, it was enough just to be. She could not express in words what that meant to her.

The mist is sweeping low, making the air humid. Both Morticia’s hair and woollen cape are coated with myriads of tiny drops by the time she reaches the asylum. The institution is silent save for the obligatory outbursts of sobbing or hysterical laughter. The corridor smells an unpleasant mix of urine, bleach and bland cooking. Her boots fall soundlessly on the worn linoleum as she makes her way down to the visiting room where the Amor twins are waiting for her.

“Morticia! How lovely to see you!”

Flora (or is it Fauna?) lifts her head up from her embroidery, greeting her with a saccharine smile. Then she sticks her embroidery needle into her mop of red hair and yells at the identical mop resting on their shared shoulder.

“Time to wake up dear sister! We’ve got a visitor!”

The other sister squints at Morticia and groans, locks of unwashed hair sticking to her tired looking face.

“Who’s that?”

“Did the doctors drug you last night? It’s Morticia, you idiot! Gomez’s wife.”

“Stop yelling at me, Fauna. Morticia, my darling, won’t you take a seat?”

Morticia does as Fauna tells her, perching on the edge of the chair.

“Make yourself at home. Here, have some fruit.” Flora shoves a bowel with a few, shrunken grapes across the coffee table.

“No thank you, I’m fine,” Morticia says, already yearning to get out of their presence.

“I came to ask you something,” she continues, her gaze shifting between two pairs of identical eyes.

Dark, peering and hungry for gossip. They make her skin crawl.

She braces herself and dives right into it.

“Do you know where Fester might be? My husband and I really need to know.”

Upon hearing her question, the twins burst into laughter, a harsh sound ricocheting between the brick walls.

“Did you hear that, Flora? She wants to know where Fester is?”

“Yes, Fauna, I did. Oh, don’t we all.”

They look at her, waves of laughter rippling through their conjoined body. Morticia stares blankly back at them.

“CIA was on it. His face was on every street corner, on every milk bottle. Hector was ready to pay a billion dollars in reward to the one who brought him back. Dead or alive,” Flora says.

“They even made NASA search the dark side of the moon,” Fauna adds.

“Eudora had this romantic idea that Fester might have gone there to look for moon rocks.”

“Did you ever meet their parents, Morticia?” Flora asks.

“No,” she replies “sadly, I didn’t get the chance. They died before Gomez and I met each other.”

“Eudora and Hector Addams, may they rest in pieces,” says Fauna.

“She meant peace,” Flora explains.

“But they were in pieces dear sister, don’t you remember? They had to go for closed caskets. It was such a tragedy. Poor Gomez. It’s an honour for an Addams to die in a duel, but to be butchered by an angry mob? That’s just pitiful.”

Fauna leans her torso over the coffee table, dragging Flora with her.

“I will never forget it for as long as I live,” she says, her voice low and excited by the grimness in the story she is about to tell. “Lurch had brought them both in from the street. Eudora was already dead but no one had the heart to tell Hector. ‘She’ll be fine, we told her. The doctors took her to the hospital and she’ll be fine.’ We thought he deserved to die unknowing of his wife’s fate.”

“The main hall smelled like a slaughterhouse. There was so much blood,” Flora whispers, a dreamy look on her face.

“They must have crushed every bone in dear Hector’s body,” Fauna continues.

“The man was so badly butchered it was a miracle that he was still alive. ‘Where is my son, he cried, I want to see my son before I die.’ And in comes Gomez, pale as a ghost, leaning over his father to kiss him goodbye. ‘Who are you?’ Hector says and Gomez answers ‘Papa, I’m Gomez, your son.’

“Oh, I thought my heart would burst for him,” Flora declares dramatically, grasping her corseted bosom ‘I only have one son,’ his father replies, ‘and his name is Fester. I want Fester, where is he?’ And Gomez just stays there grief-stricken as Hector starts coughing up blood and then it’s all over.”

Morticia bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood, making an effort not to show her pain to the twins. Part of it is compassion for her tormented beloved and the other part is the pain of hearing this in detail from somebody else than him. _He should have told me_ , her heart screams, _why didn’t he tell me_? _All those hours alone on the boat together and all he did was briefly mention that his parents died too early._

“It broke him, I think,” Fauna adds after a moment of silence.” He started a whole different lifestyle after that. We expected to find him dead one day, in a back street or in a brothel, we wouldn’t be surprised. Instead, it was Balthazar who died. The most innocent of all the Addams boys. And everyone thought it was Gomez who did it although they couldn’t prove anything.”

“I know that.”

Morticia feels a faint sense of gratitude for the fact that her husband at least has shared some of his troubled past with her.

“When I met him he was still a suspect.”

“I read in the Times the other day that they are going to reopen the Balthazar case,” Fauna says, the hunger for sensation blatant in her eyes.

A sudden jolt of heat flashes through Morticia.

“You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers,” she snaps, regretting her tune of voice in the same moment. Now they know for sure that she is hiding something from them.

“Oh?” they reply in unison, before looking at each other.

“Do you know who murdered Balthazar, Morticia?” Flora asks, stuffing her mouth with a handful of the limp grapes.

“I don’t care who murdered him.”

She narrows her eyes, fatal and feline. To her delight, the two-headed creature shrinks beneath her scrutiny.

“He’s just as dead regardless of who did it. But Fester might still be alive. Let us focus on that.”

“We really don’t know where Fester is, Morticia.” The sadness in Flora’s voice tells her that she speaks the truth.

“Do you miss him?” she asks, and there is a tinge of compassion in her voice. There’s something undeniably pitiful about the two women, forever chained to each other and locked up in a mental hospital.

“Do we miss him? Do we, Fauna?”

“I do,” Fauna sighs, “he was the only one who ever loved me.”

“Who loved _us_ ,” Flora corrects, fidgeting with the silver medallion around her neck.

“Look at him, wasn’t he handsome?”

Morticia studies the tiny, sepia coloured picture. She has seen it before, a larger version of the same picture stays on the mantelpiece in the library. To her, Fester looks rather ordinary with his pale, bald head and sunken eyes. She finds Gomez much more attractive.

“You had to know him to get it,” Flora says, as she could read Morticia’s thoughts. 

“Not only did he build his own nuclear reactor before he turned sixteen, he also had the kindest heart you can imagine. Most men would date us just for the experience.”

“Welcome to the freakshow, gentlemen and cads!” Fauna exclaims, mimicking the voice of a circus director. “Two mouths, four hands and….”

“Hush, Fauna, she’s Gomez’s wife, remember? Watch your tongue.”

“I didn’t mind being their kink,” Fauna continues, ignoring her glaring sister. “But a girl can’t live like that forever. In the end, you just want to get married. And Fester would have been the perfect husband. Kind, caring,–“

“And rich,” sighs, Flora. “We could have had it all. But then, there was Gomez.”

“Oh, that fateful night of the debutante ball. How could we resist him? They say you can tell how a man makes love by the way he dances. And how he danced! Like a god…and then he spoke to us in that accent…”

“Fauna, for Christ’s sake, not in front of his wife, I said!”

“Alas, we let Gomez seduce us that night,” Fauna continues, ignoring her sister’s scowl. “It turned out he was just another player. ‘You’ll be too much for me in the long run, he said’. So we went and looked for Fester, but he was nowhere to be found. Then, a week or so after the ball, I started to have the same dream over and over again. My separation fantasy they call it, here at the Asylum. Except it was no fantasy, not to me. It was all so real. I dreamt I could cut myself loose from my sister. It wouldn’t be any harder than running a knife through butter. I cried and then I laughed, because the solution had been there all the time. I could fix it all with a butter knife from the kitchen drawer. I didn’t need to be a freak anymore, I could simply slice her off like a wart. Move on with my life, find myself a man.”

She laughs, a high-pitched cackle that does not reach her eyes.

“Like a knife through butter, she said,” Flora scoffs and starts tugging on the neckline of her dress.

“Look what she did to me, Morticia!” 

Morticia stares quietly at the crisscrossing scars that cover the pale bridge of flesh where Flora ends and Fauna begins.

_If that was Ophelia and I, what would I have done_ , she wonders, finding a macabre joy in picturing another type of hardship than what she is currently dealing with.

“There’s no way out,” Fauna says, no longer laughing.

“No other way than death.”

Her eyes meet Morticia’s, and she smiles, a horrible, knowing smile, and then she nods.


	3. I Need You

Morticia is almost asleep when Gomez comes into their bedroom from wherever he has been. He closes the door quietly before he heads for the bathroom and turns on the shower, leaving the bathroom door half-open. Soon, she hears the steady drizzle of water and suddenly she is wide-awake. Drifting steam comingles with the cool bedroom air, filling her senses with the sharp, masculine smell of his favourite shampoo. She squirms under the duvet, the silk of her short nightgown riding up her naked thighs. Vivid images of water streaming down the olive hued panes of her husband’s body flashes through her mind. She can almost feel the taste of his warm, clean skin on her tongue.

A friendly streak of light seeps through the crack, beckoning her to come to him. Morticia lies motionless for a few more minutes, her breath shallow and her eyes fixated on the light.

Then she rises from the bed as her instincts overpower her doubts. She needs him, she needs intimacy, she needs things to be as they were before. They cannot go on like this forever.

The chill air sweeps across the swollen flesh between her thighs as she moves over the bedroom floor, her bare feet soundless against the wood boards.

Her longing is vast and shattering, it pools from her groin and cuts through her soul, her entire being is nothing but want. Still, well inside the damp cave of the bathroom, she hesitates again. She pauses for a moment, biting her lip and curling her toes against the black marble tiles, unsure of her next move. His body is close, yet so far away, obscured by the sparkling dew that trickles down the cabinet. She fingers the hem of her nightgown, unsure if she should remove it or not.

At last, Morticia pulls the dewy glass doors apart. The metaphor of this action is not lost to her, as she enters Gomez’s private space. The snarling gargoyle spews water over his dark hair, plastering it to his forehead. His eyes are closed, yet he does not flinch when he opens them and sees her standing in front of him.

“Querida,” he whispers, his hand cupping her face. She closes her eyes and leans against his touch, looking down at the water soaked silk of her black nightgown.

“I need you,” she moans, and he leans down and kisses her softly.

She takes it as encouragement, deepening their kiss while she tries to close the space between their bodies, her nails clawing desperate, red welts across the curves of his shoulders and biceps.

Instead of yielding to her touch, Gomez tenses, and Morticia’s heart sinks in her chest as he grasps her shoulders and breaks their kiss.

“What?” she whimpers, unable to believe what he is doing to her.

He turns off the shower before he grabs a towel and drapes it around his waist.

She wraps her arms around herself, suddenly cold and miserable by the brutal lack of contact.

“It’s not you, cara. You must not think that I don’t…” He groans and sinks down on the chair next to the towel rack, rubbing both his temples.

“Then what is it?”

He does not reply, yet she knows the answer all too well.

“It’s Fester, isn’t it?”

His name sizzles like a curse on her tongue, and for the first time she realizes that she hates him.

Deeply.

Fester Addams: the favoured child, the pedestalled ghost, the butt hurt, unforgiving brother.

He is ruining their life and she cannot take it anymore.

“Answer me,” Morticia demands, loathing the cruelty in her own voice because she sees how her husband shrinks in front of her. And all she really wants is to show him in every possible way how much she loves him.

But he will not let her, and it hurts her more than anything she has ever experienced before.

“Sometimes I feel his presence,” Gomez says, his voice low and wistful and his eyes everywhere else than on her shivering silk-clad body.

“It’s almost like his spirit is here, watching me having the life he should have had. The mansion, the swamp, the factories, the octopus farm–“

He gesticulates in the air, calling forth the whole empire of wealth of which he is the ruler.

“What about me?” Morticia asks, her voice hurt and lethal.

“Should I have belonged to Fester too? Is that what you mean?”

He does not answer her and she shakes her head in disbelief.

“I talked to the twins,” Morticia says, rubbing her eyes. It is still beyond her dignity to start crying in front of him.

“They have no idea where he is, no one has. He’s gone, Gomez.”

She draws a ragged breath, wanting to stop herself, but it is too late.

“And you have to deal with it.”

Her heart is thrumming with adrenaline as she waits for his response, bracing herself for shouting or tears, but he remains quiet.

“I need to be alone now,” he finally replies in such an uncharacteristically calm manner that it scares her more than his anger would.

“D’accord,” Morticia whispers, her eyelids beating rapidly, fighting the humiliating well of frustrated tears that threaten to fall from her eyes.

“D’accord,” she repeats as she backs away from him towards the darkness of their bedroom. She pulls her wet nightgown over her head and tosses it on the floor. Then she tumbles into bed and rolls her body into a ball under the duvet, revealing nothing else to the night than a few tendrils of black hair.

She sobs into the mattress when she hears his steps fading away in the hallway.


	4. Damian Waldorf

The doorbell chimes several times, a shrill sound tearing through the stale stillness of the mansion. When Morticia reaches the hall, the inpatient late guest has given up on the bell and started banging on the door instead. It’s Damian Waldorf, a friend of Gomez and a fellow businessman. She believes they met at the train club or was it the golf club, she can’t quite remember, however she is relieved to see a familiar face instead of another nosy paparazzi.

“Morticia!” he beams, “long time, no see! I’ve tried to reach your husband but he never picks up the phone. Is he terribly busy these days?”

“Damian,” she replies, “come on in. Gomez hasn’t been feeling so well lately, I’m afraid.”

“Melancholic again, isn’t he?” Damian says flippantly as Morticia takes his coat, and she studies him for a while before she answers. How close are he and Gomez, she wonders, ashamed that she does not know. Has she really forgotten to ask her husband the simple question ‘who is your best friend?’

Gone are the days spent on that glorious cruise ship, gone are the nights filled with the buzzing of the tsetse flies and the silent moans from the malaria victims. How she misses the intensity and depth of their conversations as they lie on the deck, the mosquito net cocooning their naked bodies. Morticia felt like they were the only man and woman in the world. The only two people who mattered, the only survivors, beside the captain who sailed them back to New York before he disappeared never to be seen on a ship again.

Was she really that naïve as to believe they could keep this simplicity when they returned from their honeymoon? She knew now that Gomez’s life was crowded and complicated, filled with relatives and business acquaintances and friends. So unlike hers, devoted to her studies and her small coven.

It’s too late now.

Before Gomez retired to the library to work on his scrapbook with pictures of Fester, he told her explicitly that he did not want to be disturbed. Morticia has no other choice than to trust her instincts when it comes to the man crossing the doorstep to their home, a stout, energetic character in his early forties.

“Yes,” she answers after a few, long seconds “how did you know that?”

“Oh, you know, I’m his friend. It’s an annual thing, it’s been that way ever since his brother disappeared. Poor, old Gomez can’t stop blaming himself. One has to love the masochist in him.”

“Maybe you could try and talk to him. See if there’s anything you can say that might help.”

“Driving you crazy with all that Fester-talk, isn’t he?”

He laughs knowingly when she does not answer and reaches for the brandy she has poured him. Morticia cannot help but notice the tell-tale redness of his chest under his loose cravat. She wonders how many drinks he has already had today.

“Thank you. You don’t have to say it, I know how protective you two are of each other. But trust me, Morticia, I’ve had that talk with him many times and to be honest it doesn’t go anywhere. He’s hell-bent on holding on to the idea that he deserves his torment. He won’t let go. As far as I know, he’s worn out a couple of psychiatrists as well.”

“They suggested lobotomy.”

Damian almost chokes on his brandy and starts coughing.

“Pardon me? Lobotomy! Turning him into a vegetable as if that helps. Wouldn’t be much fun for you if they turned your handsome husband into a demented turnip.”

He runs his hands through his mass of chestnut curls and huffs with disapproval.

“Bah. Shrinks, they’re all useless. I stem from a long line of neurotics and psychopaths and they never did a thing for any of them. I’ll tell you this, Morticia, there’s only two things that can cure a man’s mind. The first one is brandy, and while we speak of it, do you mind pouring me another one? I get so ghastly thirsty when I go for walks.”

“And the other one?” she asks as she watches the golden liquid fill his empty glass. Damian might just speak nonsense but she cannot deny that she enjoys his company. It is a welcoming break from the unbearable silence.

“The other one is time. You see, melancholia is kind of like that clammy mist that has been hanging over New York lately. At first you don’t notice it, it’s just there and when you finally do it has been going on for a while. It’s pleasant at first, dreary in a charming way and if you are prone to wallow in misery, like Gomez is, you may find yourself enjoying it. At least for a while. Then one day you’ve had enough and you want to get rid of it, but you don’t know how to chase it away. It’s been there for so long that you have come to think of it as a new normality. A permanent part of the landscape or a permanent part of you. You can no longer remember the sun, or the shiny church spires or the flock of larks diving through the pearl blue sky–

She shifts uncomfortably in her seat and he chuckles.

“Looking at you I realize I chose the wrong metaphors, but my point is this: when you start to believe it will be there forever, the mist or the melancholia, that is when it suddenly disappears. One day you simply wake up and it will be all over. You’ll dress up and eat your breakfast and go out and look at the sky and you’ll say _oh so that’s how the world used to be. Now I remember_.”

Morticia meets Damian’s gaze, her eyes young and dark and harbouring a quiet despair, which her guest does not fail to notice.

He lifts his glass to his mouth again and winks at her.

“He will be himself again, Morticia. One of these days. I promise you.”

“Can I ask you to do me a favour?”

“Anything for you.” He grins at her, flashing his golden canine tooth.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Well…” she hesitates, not sure if she should involve someone from outside of the family in her husband’s business affairs, but he leaves her with little choice. She cannot keep rescheduling all his meetings, his appointment book for the next quarter is already full. And the stacks of unanswered letters are towering over the dust covered mahogany of his writing desk like skyscrapers.

“He hasn’t taken care of his business affairs the last couple of weeks. I wondered if you could have a look at…a few things?”

Damian whistles when he sees the pile of letters.

“Someone has been procrastinating for a while. A few things you said.”

He drops down in Gomez’s leather chair, the weight of him causing it to moan and squeak.

“I was a bit…unprecise. I beg your pardon, Damian. It’s a lot, I know it. It’s just that…I know absolutely nothing about real estate or stock trading and–“

Morticia waves her hand towards the table in a vague gesture, loathing the fact that Gomez’s friend might perceive her as the silly housewife, but the truth is her husband has trusted her with more than she can handle. The unfairness of it all washes over her with renewed strength and she blinks hard to chase away the hot prickling of unshed tears that threatens to overpower her.

She has to look away for a few seconds in order to regain her composure. Damian squeezes her shoulder, which is cold and hard as marble.

“Don’t worry, Morticia, I got this. You’re Gomez’s sweet, young wife; you shouldn’t be bothered with the tiresome details of his business affairs. I just need a paper knife and another glass of brandy and we’ll be good to go. I will sign the letters as his hitherto unknown, yet very much trusted secretary.”

Damian laces his sturdy fingers together, cranking the knuckles with loud pops.

“Let me see what we got here.”

He slices open the first envelope, the topazes and emeralds on the shaft of the paperknife twinkle in the light of the kerosene lamp as he does so.

“This one seems to be from one of the subsidiary companies. Oh, how I hate those. It’s like having children, you leave them unattended for a second and they get themselves into trouble, sure as hell.”’

He furrows his brow, his green eyes moving rapidly down the first page.

“Listen to this, it’s actually kind of funny.”

Damian chuckles to himself before he reads the letter aloud to her.

_“Dear Mister Addams, we have gone through the results of the last accounting year and we are sorry to inform you that we find ourselves on the verge of bankruptcy_. (Numbers and figures and blah blah blah.) _The CEO jumped out the window the other day and the lawsuits are piling up due to the inconvenient incident of a minor explosion following the launching of our newest product the ‘Home and Office Flamethrower_ _™’_ […] _However, we believe it is mostly a question about marketing. The board has fired the whole marketing department and we are currently hiring….”_

“What do they want?” Morticia asks, leaning over his shoulder.

“They want the parent company to spit in more money. Another loan. A fresh start. What do you think Gomez would say to that?”

“I really don’t know. To me it sounds like they deserve to be put out of business. But Gomez likes to gamble and tends to invest when others would have thrown in the towel.”

“If you went and asked him about it, what do you think the answer would be?”

“What he told me earlier today. That it’s just money and that it doesn’t matter anyway.”

“Very well, I’ll be the decision maker then, if you don’t mind?”

Morticia gives Damian a slight nod, feeling herself go drowsy with relief; as if an invisible weight has been lifted off her shoulders.

Without hesitation, he dips the fountain pen in the ink and scribbles down a hasty answer. He reads it aloud to her, his voice laced with satisfaction.

_“Dear Cranckle & son, thank you for your letter. On the behalf of Gomez Addams, I write to inform you that he has decided to get rid of all his stocks. Good luck with your lawsuits and rebranding project. Sincerely, Damian Waldorf (friend, secretary and assistant).”_

Then he seals the envelope with wax before he reaches for the next one.

“I know a few lunatics who are willing to invest in companies like that. We’ll get rid of those stocks in no time. Now let me see what we got here…“

Damian takes a solid sip of brandy before opening the next letter.

“Crazy Cat Ladies Association, begging for money to build a house in New Jersey where they can live with an unlimited amount of cats. In the spirit of Gomez Addams that would be a clear yes, that man is all about charity.”

“We both are.”

He smiles at her, fans of fine wrinkles spreading from the corners of his green eyes.

“You are good people, you two.”

***

The scraping sound of pen against paper, the mellow light from the kerosene lamp and the smell of black coffee, all of these things create a sense of normality that Morticia finds comforting. Damian has brought with him an atmosphere of common sense and vigour that has been missing from her home for so long that she struggles to remember what it was like not living like this.

She offers him a slight smile as she carefully places the silver tray with his coffee on the writing desk.

“Feel free to leave when you’ve had enough of this, Damian. It’s already past midnight. You must be tired.”

“I tell you what, young lady, I’ve actually been enjoying myself. Taking care of your friend’s business is in some ways a more pleasant task than taking care of your own. You see things from a distance. This company is not my baby, so my decisions are not clouded by love or fear or irritation. What I’m left with is the blessings of the clarity that follows emotional detachment. It makes me efficient.”

“There–“he scribbles something down on the back of an envelope and puts the pen aside, “I think I’m done now. The rest of the letters are insignificant. Save them for Gomez. Or better, just burn them.”

He laughs heartily and stretches his arms over his head, the green satin of his shirt clinging to his bulging triceps. Then he reaches for the coffee and she wonders briefly if there is anyone waiting for him at home. She does not ask him, she finds it a bit blunt, blurting out a personal question like that without any suitable context. Instead, she casts a stolen glance at him. The delicate porcelain looks almost comical in his sturdy hand, which is covered by a pattern of prominent purple veins. He wears a thin golden chain around his wrist, but no rings.

Suddenly he looks directly at her and she flinches, taken aback by the look in his eyes. He is observing her, clearly looking for something, and she is not sure what it is. It makes her feel uncomfortable.

“As you can see, I’m not married.”

“I wasn’t going to ask.” She feels a burning sensation in her cheeks and she wonders if it shows.

“I know you weren’t. It’s not your style to be direct. You are way too polite.”

He grins at her, once again flashing his golden tooth. There is something about him that makes her think of the alligators in the swamp. She stares back at him, making an effort to make her face appear unreadable.

“I know very little about marriage, as I lack first-hand experience, but I know this much: you are not happy in yours, Morticia.”

Her eyes widen and her lips part slightly, yet she says nothing. She does not like where this is going and she feels a sudden urge to ask him to leave.

“Listen, Gomez is my friend and I love that Castilian rascal, still I cannot help but question the way he is treating his lovely wife here. What kind of man throws the responsibility for a multinational company on a sweet, little thing like you? How old are you? Twenty one? Twenty two?

“I’m almost twenty five, “she replies, pleased to hear the dignity in her own voice although she cannot prevent her bottom lip from quivering.

“I didn’t mean to be rude, sweetheart. I’m a straight forward type of guy. I’m also a man who notices things. Like the pale marks on the wall behind you were there used to be two crossing swords.”

She looks over her shoulder at the patches on the wallpaper as if she did not already know they were there.

“It was you who took them down, wasn’t it? Why?”

“It’s late,” Morticia replies, avoiding the scrutiny of his green eyes. He makes her feel transparent as if he knows her on a deeper level. As if he has found some secret passageway to her fear and irrationality, a way to peek behind what she chooses to show him.

“I’ll see you out.”

She raises from her chair and walks towards the heavy oak door without looking at him, her hand closing around the brass handle as she pulls it towards her. The door does not yield and she yanks it again, her heart beating wildly.

“Are you sure you want me to leave?”

All of sudden Damian’s hands are on her, pulling her into his embrace. For a moment, the feeling of another human’s warmth is so overwhelming that her heart goes silent and she has no words, no other desire than to melt into his arms and disappear. Her head falls back to lean against his chest as she closes her eyes, yielding to the comfort of simply being held.

“The door opens outwards,” he whispers, his mouth against her hair, as her hand lets go of the brass handle to fall limply at her side. 


	5. The Paper Knife

“You are so tense.”

Damian grasps Morticia's narrow shoulders and she moans at the exquisite pain as he digs his fingers into her flesh.

“I don’t like the idea of leaving you like this,” he continues, trailing his thumbs along the curves of her shoulder blades, “alone with a madman.”

“Gomez isn’t–“

“Shhh,” he places one hand over her mouth while the other closes around her hip.

“He’ll be fine. Right now it’s you that I’m worried about, Morticia. When a man neglects his business affairs like that I can’t help but wonder,–“ his hand moves slowly from her hip towards the swell of her breast “if there are other duties he fails to fulfil as well.”

She gasps beneath his hand when Damian starts to fondle her, his fingers dipping beneath the seam of her plunging neckline. If she thought for a minute he touched her out of something remotely close to compassion, she does not think so any longer. There is a voice in the back of her mind telling her to stop this. Morticia is married to a man whom she loves deeply and this is wrong, yet Damian’s touches do not disgust her, as they should.

Is that why she does not stop him?

It is not before he starts to pull her dress up her thighs that a jolt of panic cuts through her increasing arousal and she regains the ability to act.

“No,” she breathes, placing her hand over his and to her relief he stops what he is doing.

“I don’t want to–“She swirls around to look Damian in his eyes.

The sight of him makes her blood run cold.

Morticia is far from innocent; she has seen the transformation from gentleman to beast before, in her husband and in her former lovers. Yet a wave with something alarmingly close to fear washes over her when her eyes find Damian’s. The warmth in his eyes are gone, along with the humoristic twinkle. Another Damian is staring back at her, making his former self appear as a mere illusion. His eye colour has changed into a cooler shade of green, and once again, Morticia thinks of alligators, as they remain trained on her without blinking.

She sees lust in them, but there is also something much more sinister, and that is what frightens her. Morticia studies the Dark Forces, she knows the depths of Hell better than most people do, and she knows that this man belongs there. His gaze fills her mind with disturbing images of tiny, writhing animals and needles. This is, she realizes, the eyes of a man who enjoys watching other beings suffer out of pure curiosity. He finds her interesting in the same way he would have found a car crash interesting or the dying process of a baby bird fallen from its nest. She is in pain and it fascinates him. That, and her body.

Morticia pries her eyes away from Damian, as she can no longer bear to look directly at him. Her eyes catches the shiny reflection from the gem- studded paper knife, left alone on Gomez’s writing desk. She takes a deep breath before she speaks.

She might just have this one chance.

“Damian,” she says in her best bedroom voice, earning such a triumphant smile from him that it makes her stomach tighten into a knot.

“What I meant to say…” she pauses to control the trembling in her voice before continuing, “…what I meant to say was that I don’t want to do it against the door.”

Damian throws out his arms and laughs, all gold and lust and heartlessness.

“You can have me wherever you want me, my lady.”

“I want you to lie down,” she nods towards the writing desk “on that.”

“On your husband’s writing desk? I like the way your mind works. That’s kinky.”

She smiles at him and bats her long lashes and he grins back at her while he backs towards the solid piece of mahogany.

“Close your eyes,” Morticia whispers as she straddles his broad chest, grateful for the split in her dress.

He does as she says and she wastes no time, grabbing the paper knife and pressing the blade to the flushed skin on Damian’s throat.

“I want you to leave me alone.”

His eyes fly open, and he looks somewhat puzzled for a while by the change in her tone and the fact that she is no longer playing along in his game.

Her eyes are black and hard as flint, her face cut from stone.

The man beneath her finds her even more tantalizing now that she is threatening him. She displays such a queer combination of human emotions, he muses, as he enjoys the weight of her body and the slight pressure against his larynx.

And the best thing is that he is able to smell them all.

Arousal, fear, anger, sorrow, the scent of her is intoxicating. He wants nothing more in the world right now than to fuck her.

“You are a vicious, little bitch,” Damian rasps, his voice strained from the pressure of the knife blade.

“You turn me on. Now put down that knife, Morticia.”

“Get the hell out of my home,” she hisses, her eyes not leaving his.

“Unless…?” he answers, his rough palms sliding over the silky skin of her thighs.

He is pleased when her legs quiver underneath his hands. She bites her lip, but remains quiet.

“Do you really think you can kill me with that silly, little artefact? I know that it’s blunt, because one: I’ve been using it for hours, and two: you’ve hidden all the sharp ones, remember?”

Morticia flinches, yet she keeps the knife in a steady grip.

“As much as I believe I would’ve enjoyed death by your hands, I must disappoint you” Damian says, his voice even and cold despite his throbbing erection.

“It won’t happen tonight, my darling. Not with that play thing.”

A sense of hopelessness overwhelms her, draining the strength from her limbs. She drops the knife and slides off of Damian’s body and down to the floor where she hides her face in her hands.

“I’m so afraid,” Morticia whispers, more to herself than to him.

“All the time.”

A stifled sob escapes her throat. The sound of it would have broken Damian’s heart if only he had one.

“If he kills himself, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“Your husband is a grown man,” Damian replies, as he kneels down beside her.

“He must make his own choices. If he really wants to die, there is nothing you, or I for that matter, can do about it. You can store away all the sharps object in the godforsaken mansion, the man will still be able to kill himself with a shoestring. Not that I think he will, but anyways, the choice is his. If I were you, I would’ve stopped babying him.”

Morticia wants to say that there is something terribly wrong with Damian’s conclusion, but before she can find the right words, let alone form a coherent sentence, he lowers her to the floor, mirroring her former position. But instead of a knife, he presses his lips against the sensitive skin on the slender column of her neck. He keeps them there in a lingering kiss, his hands fisting her dark hair as she breaths him in – brandy and betrayal and the dry smell of ignorance.

“Do you still want me to leave?” Damian asks, looming over Morticia, his face partly obscured and twisted by the shadows. He does no longer look like a human at all.

And there is no resistance left in her body, just that sickening longing for relief, for whatever that can give her a break from the burden of keeping everything together. She focuses for a moment on the chilly sensation of the floor draft against her wet cheeks before she closes her eyes.

“Or–” Damian continues as he unbuttons his trousers, “will you let me give you what you clearly need?”

The silence remains unbroken, save for one single hiss from the kerosene lamp where the flame flickers, staining the glass with soot.

Damian takes a moment to admire his own shadow on the wall, which magnifies his phallus into monstrous dimensions. Then he lets out a short laugh and pulls her legs apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of letting a psychopath (or the Devil himself? you decide) interact with Morticia came partly from LittleObsessions magnificent fic "The story of M" , which you can find on fanfiction.net.


	6. Sunrise

“Come on, I wasn’t that bad, was I?”

Damian pushes his shirttails back into his trousers while looking at the young woman on the floor. Her hands are covering her eyes in such a pathetic display of regret that it makes him roll his eyes in disdain.

_Women._ This is why he prefers to leave after he has fucked them. He has never cared much for their drama.

“Please just go,” she whispers, her voice barely audible.

“I’m one my way,” he says lightly, “I know where the door is. You stay where you are. Try to get some sleep now. I’m sure I will.”

She does not reply and he shrugs his shoulders and starts to whistle.

“And try not to worry too much,” he adds before he slams the door and leaves.

_Rage,_ Morticia tells herself as she hurries through the corridor, her dress slumping over her shoulder and her skin still burning from Damian’s touch, _rage is what I feel_.

And it has to be so, she is determined to push her anger forth as a shield, because she can feel her own sanity fraying at the seams like a shroud around a corpse. For all that is holy, she cannot afford to fall apart. The burning sensation behind her eyes, the jolts of hot and cold through her body, the sudden dryness in her throat, all of it is rage, is hate, is her righteous thirst for revenge.

Still shame pours from her heart, beating in time with the aftermath of her orgasm, leaking through her rage like the luke- warm streams of liquid soiling her inner thighs.

_Why didn’t I tell him to leave? He gave me a choice. He gave me a choice and I did not do anything._

Then there is another voice, frail and vague, yet still there.

_You did not have much choice. You looked into his eyes. You saw what that man really was. You were afraid._

_I wasn’t afraid._

_Don’t lie._

_I’m never afraid, not of men like him._

_You are lying._

_“I’m not a victim.”  
_

Startled by her own voice, hoarse and unfamiliar in the dead of the night, Morticia stops as she reaches the stairs leading down to the library.

_So what am I?_

If she were a victim by the book, she would have showered, crying while she did it. But she feels too terrified by her own actions to cry and too guilty to claim the victim role, even if she wanted to.

Furthermore, scalding herself in hot water will not make her feel clean again. Damian’s hands and body, although uninvited and unwanted, opened a gateway to the worst in her: a senseless carnal hunger that knows nothing of love or commitment or boundaries. A self beyond her better self, wordless, shameless and greedy, crushing the image of her ideal self to smithereens.

_Because the truth is, she enjoyed it._

Even fire cannot purify her. If she were to be burned at the stake for her sin, like a witch in the olden days, her charred bones would still be writhing on the ground in shame.

Her body betrayed her and by that, she betrayed her husband. She will never forgive herself. And neither may he.

Morticia shivers uncontrollably by the time she enters the stained glass door leading into the library. She has to bite her tongue to keep her teeth from chattering. Her ears start ringing and for a few, mad seconds she is convinced that she hears footsteps behind her and she turns, but there is no one there.

The fire is almost dead, but she eyes her husband’s silhouette, a rough charcoal sketch against the vast window panes.

“ _Gomez_.”

Her mouth curls around his name, but her voice fails her as she stops a few feet away from him, close enough to distinguish the purple shade in his smoking jacket from the blackness of the room. Morticia searches for her voice, for a final tread of her strength, just enough to put down in words what his so-called friend just did to her. She fears that if she does not tell Gomez the whole, horrible truth right now she will never again be able to do so. She has never needed her husband more than she does right now, as she reaches out for him in a voiceless plea for his comfort, his forgiveness.

Morticia buries her face against his chest, and the familiar scent of cologne and cigars causes the tears to well up in her eyes. Gomez wraps his arms around her, draping her in his warmth, and for a moment, she clearly believes that he is really there with her. The realization becomes her undoing and she begins to weep against the starched cotton of his shirt.

His voice cuts through the silence between them, raw like an open wound.

“ _Just let me die_.”

If he is addressing her, or God, or the Devil himself, Morticia cannot tell.

“I can’t live like this any longer, please just let me die,” he sobs, and the mere horror of his words dries her eyes and numbs her body.

They cling to each other, as there is nothing else they can do, desperately searching for a comfort neither of them is able to give.

Morticia sits with Gomez until the night has swallowed the last dying ember and she can now longer see her own hands. Like a child, he has cried himself to sleep in her lap and she struggles to keep her own eyes open. The events of this endless night has brought her to the brink of exhaustion. A feeling of indifference seeps through her bones, an all-consuming need to sleep, and to do so in her own bed.

Morticia rises from the chaise lounge, thinking fleetingly that whatever it will be, it will be and then she leaves Gomez to his own devices. Staggering through the corridor, her chin down and her long hair covering the pale oval of her face, she feels as if she is walking in a dream. The corridors and staircases seem to have no end to them; the family paintings float on the walls like images on the surface of a lake.

Visions and voices appear and disappear again, broken fragments of things she rather forget.

_Gomez’s butchered father denying his own son._

_The lecherous laughter of two conjoined heads as they turn in unison to stare at a young doctor’s tight buttocks._

_Her husband’s broken voice begging for his own death._

_Professor Winkelstein’s cold voice telling her to hide all the kitchen knives._

_The creaking of the floorboards under the curve of her spine and Damian groaning over and over again that she wants this._

She reaches the hall before the master bedroom in the same moment as the pale November sun creeps over the horizon, piercing through the veil of mist that obscures the cemetery.

_“Fester_ ,” she whispers, and to her fragile mind, the sun becomes his bald skull, a pair of tombstones his coal black eyes and the winding gravel path his signature grin.

Morticia shields her eyes with her left hand while reaching out the right to greet him, the returning long lost brother. She stands like this for a few seconds, a ruined beauty, swaying under the merciless rays of the morning sun.

Then everything goes black.


End file.
